


hasya

by weaslayyy



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 11:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18570214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: When Uttara is 16 she makes a match with Abhimanyu, son of the greatest warrior the world has ever known: her beloved dance teacher Brihannala.





	hasya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Golden_Daughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Daughter/gifts).



A year passes between the end of the 13th year and the Great War, during which a wedding is celebrated, envoys are sent and armies gathered. Uttara watches as the Pandavas are crowned in Matsya, Yudhisthira refusing to take her father’s seat as king but accepting Virata’s fealty as Emperor. He spends his days cloistered with the advisors he can trust, men who trickle slowly into Virata’s court from all over the kingdoms that once made up his Empire. The Pandava seat was established by the Pandavas alone, and so they cannot count on the Kuru alliances wrought by generations of blood and fealty. 

Why, there are rumors that even the _Yadavas_ hesitate, whispers in the ladies’ apartments that not even Krishna Vasudev has managed to conquer his elder brother’s ambivalence in the face of a potential battle between favored pupil and his own blood. Panchal stands strong of course, half its army at Crown Prince Dhristadyumna’s back when he walks up the palace steps to greet his sister Draupadi. The rest, he says, are prepared to march the moment the coming war’s location is decided Matsya too is sworn, not only by Uttara’s own upcoming marriage alliance but in remembrance of how, at their darkest hour, they were saved by her dance teacher who also happened to be the greatest warrior of the age.  

The rest, though, will apparently not be so easy to come by.  

“Was it truly necessary,” Bhima asks one day over dinner, “that you kill  _ all  _ of our maternal relations? It isn’t like we can ask anything of our father’s people.” 

Asked of any other man, such a question might have started a war. Uttara, in the middle of refilling the Emperor’s water glass, watches Krishna Vasudev merely raise an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” he says, lifting a piece of bread to his mouth. Servant and Emperor alike wait for him to swallow. “It was.” Of the many men gathered it is only Arjuna who smiles, interrupting the strained silence to drain his cup of wine before reaching across Krishna’s lap to finish his as well. 

“Do you remember...” he begins to say, and from the ease in his speech Uttara can tell that her erstwhile instructor has entirely forgotten that he has an audience. She is almost entranced by the sight of Arjuna pulling what might be the most horrendous face she has ever seen. “By all the gods,” he says, as if the words turn his stomach, “I think I have gotten old.”  

The room erupts this time, all men streaked with grey who struggle to forget that they are no longer young. Uttara busies herself with filling Nakula’s water glass to hide her smile as the man still known in Matsya as the Conqueror manages to flush at the attention, angling his body just slightly towards his cousin instead of the rest of the crowd, even his own son who sits at his other side. 

*****

Of everyone in Matsya it was generally acknowledged that Uttara knew the dancer Brihannala best, she who spent all her days by Brihannala’s side. It was natural, people thought, that a dance instructor not spend much time amongst the other servants -- it had been 20 years since such a talent had found themselves on the outskirts of the Aryan kingdoms, and the Princess, who had always dreamed of becoming a dancer, had much to learn. In Arjuna, once lord-commander of the Imperial Army, the aloofness he presents is also said to be natural, if a little off putting, recognition of his own exalted status in comparison to the rest.  

Of everyone in Matsya it was Uttara alone who knew the truth: of the reason behind Brihannala’s reticence, at least, if not the truth of who she had been before arriving at Matsya’s border.

“No,” Brihannala had said during a festival day, one in which Uttara’s lessons continued even while others drank, ate, and made merry. “You are not so hopeless that either of us should sacrifice time better spent with others.” Brihannala sighed. “In truth, it has been difficult for me to relate with many people in the past, and so I have developed the habit of avoiding them. But that is no excuse to keep you against your will.” 

Uttara had hummed, and then on a whim she had tried to lift her left leg behind her ear. Once the resulting fallout had been dealt with and a new pose sternly assigned, Uttara asked who exactly was exalted enough to spend time in the company of Brihannala. 

“My wives,” she had replied offhandedly before tensing, looking up at Uttara from where Brihannala had been adjusting the particular splay of her knees, the only way they had realized Uttara was capable of learning. Uttara, who was young but not stupid, had smiled: even in Matsya, or maybe particularly in Matsya, they know of more ways to love than those sanctioned by the holy fire. 

Brihannala softened, hands moving to adjust the shape of Uttara’s fingers. “My cousin,” she offered eventually, when Uttara had finally managed to form the mudra. “Above all others I find it easiest to be myself with him. He calls me by my mother’s name, her real one, and it is a title I have come to cherish more than my own.” 

When the battles were ended and Matsya somehow won, Uttara had wondered how much of the Brihannala she loved could be found in the shining, legendary warrior before her. 

“Partha,” Krishna Vasudev had called out when he arrived, and Uttara had looked out in confusion for a moment before Arjuna had answered, running into his cousin’s embrace. Pritha, her mother whispered, was the name the Lady Kunti had been born to before her adoptive father had given her his. Partha is thus her son. It was only then that Uttara had known. 

She watches now as Krishna gestures for the cup in his cousin’s hand to be refilled, plucking it from Arjuna’s fingers to take a sip before handing it back with a smile. It is a liberty no other will take, no other _can_ take when the grand, glorious reputation of the third Pandava almost instinctively demands a certain deference that keeps him from almost all who might offer him warmth. 

It is then, that Uttara finally decides.

***

At nightfall, only a few days before her wedding, Uttara walks to the guest quarters of Virata’s palace to see her beloved teacher. It is hardly appropriate for her to spend her days as she did, strange man that her teacher now is, but, Uttara considers, the damage to her reputation is already done. It is the reason that she was first offered to Arjuna as his wife, and even now she will marry his son who has no need to question the honor of his father. Regardless, she is princess in Matsya, the palace of Virata is her home, and not only is she lonely, she thinks that he might be as well. She walks with all the confidence she can muster to the wing now inhabited by the Pandavas only to find Arjuna nearly alone in the courtyard, only accompanied by his son and his bow. 

Even those children like Uttara, who barely heeded their wet nurses’ stories, know of Gandiva -- for a moment, she is struck dumb at the sight of such a weapon. It is a further shock to see her fiance, though perhaps she thinks it shouldn’t be. There has been a 13 year separation between them, and for all that Arjuna was once Uttara’s beloved teacher he is a warrior, and a father as well. It is a strange irony that not only does Uttara know Arjuna better than all of Matsya, but in fact she may well have known him longer than his own son. 

Perhaps, she thinks, this was a mistake. To ask for Brihannala’s company is one thing, but who is Uttara, a princess of little standing and less dancing skill, to impose on the archer of legend -- especially when he is with Abhimanyu, her future spouse?

“Uttara!” Arjuna says before she can make a hasty retreat. His voice is pitched lower but carries the same warmth as Brihannala’s the entire year before -- her fear dissipates like mist. “How lovely to see you!” 

Uttara smiles, and then laughs at the surprise so suddenly naked on her fiance’s face, perhaps at the sight of his father engaging in a real, vocalized social nicety instead of his usual perfunctory nod of the head. It had taken a full month for Uttara and Brihannala to find themselves a type of accord, another two after that to discover comfort in each others’ company. To be called Uttara by her teacher is a well earned prize, even if she can no longer use Brihannala in return.

She shakes off what little qualms remain, her mother’s voice that screams Uttara should not be found with  _ men  _ before she is married, her fiance least of all. Brihannala knew her charge to be heedless, and Arjuna still suggested the match. There can be nothing more that comes as a surprise. 

“And you--” she sighs, as she feels she always will at the term, “father?” It is strange to know Arjuna now as a man, to call him father, when she had spent so long referring to Brihannala as a woman. Abhimanyu seems slightly scandalized at her obvious distaste of the word, but his father laughs, provoking another bout of shock for the son. Strange, Uttara thinks, because the Brihannala she knew had a rather wicked sense of humor when encouraged. It has been a month since her fiancé arrived —why should he still be shocked by his father’s laugh? 

“Is there something I can do?” Arjuna asks, interrupting Uttara’s train of thought. Uttara huffs, brushing off her concern: she had not thought this far. Or really, at all. Her eyes find Gandiva again, and on another whim, the type that led her to attempt advanced poses and end up in the infirmary, she extends her hand. 

 “May I?,” she asks, waving in the direction of the bow. 

Arjuna raises an eyebrow. “Perhaps a year was too short to tell, but I never remembered you showing an inclination towards the art of war.” 

“You know me better than anyone,” Uttara says with her sunniest grin. “I assume I grab the middle?” 

Arjuna’s lips twitch as he walks obediently to her side, bow in hand. “If only you were so clever with your mudras, you might have performed more than the one song for the anniversary of your royal father’s ascension.” 

“Did you not say to my lady mother that I was the cleverest student you had ever taught?” 

Already Arjuna has spoken more to Uttara than she has heard him say to a crowd in a week. When he passes the bow, it is heavier than she anticipated: she automatically lowers her arm so that most of the weight rests on the floor. He smiles and falls to his knees. Even Uttara is shocked to see the greatest bowman of the Aryan kingdoms at her feet, shifting her legs into something resembling the proper stance of an archer. 

It is, her mother might have said, the height of potential dishonor: to have a man neither her father nor her brother touch her body like this. Worse for him to be the great Arjuna, and for his touching of her legs to be a debasement of his high status as well. And yet -- 

“I think we all know now that you are, in fact, the only student I have ever taught.” Arjuna frowns, adjusting the angle of her back foot before rising, all of it seemingly on the instinct of a teacher. “Dance, at least.” 

What a title to claim, Uttara thinks with a twinge of hysteria, comparing herself to the noted warriors who boast of their instruction by Kunti’s third son. The next words come before she can try to stop her tongue: “but I am  _ terrible _ !” 

Even Uttara’s fiance, who has watched the proceedings with what can only be described as silent stupefaction, finds it within himself to grin.

“Oh,” Abhimanyu says, coming alive with a slight shake of his head, and a charming smile. “I cannot believe that anyone my father teaches to be so bad. Perhaps you have only compared yourself to your teacher!” 

It might be the first time he has spoken to her directly. Uttara can only laugh.  

**** 

When Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna by his Yadava wife Subhadra, arrived in Matsya he touched the feet first of Yudhisthira, then Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva before finally flattening in front of Arjuna in total submission.  

“My father,” he had said, all eyes on his prone form, “it has been 13 years since we last met, but I have trained every day in the hopes of making you proud. Now that I am, at last, in your presence again, I am yours to command.” Uttara had seen Arjuna meet Krishna Vasudev’s gaze in a panic, raising Abhimanyu to his chest and saying, in a voice slightly overloud for the occasion nothing more than the words “my son” before falling into silence once more.  

The frantic spies Sudeshna had sent out when Arjuna had declined Uttara’s hand and offered his more age appropriate son had come back with such reports as hardly could be believed. Abhimanyu, they said, was not only handsome, but intelligent. Courageous, kind, with the beginnings of wisdom. Abhimanyu was the beloved not only of his mother but of the Empress Panchali who herself had borne five sons of her own. And yet Abhimanyu is the youngest son of his father’s youngest wife, a child who knows more of his uncles’ Dwaraka than his elder-father Yudhisthira's Indraprastha. 

Abhimanyu was handsome, they said, and this is had been the easiest report to verify, a low swoop in her belly at first stolen glance from behind a pillar. “Well,” Sudeshna had said after the first meetings between families, “at least the bedding will be easy.” 

Since Abhimanyu’s arrival with the Yadava contingent, he has become his father’s shadow, even more so than the Pandavas’ other children who might have had memories of their parents before their exile. He is a loving son, as is evident to everyone who has met him, but Brihannala had always grimaced at devotion, and Arjuna seems much the same. 

Uttara wonders if at any point during her fiance’s life with the Yadavas Abhimanyu would have rather been with his father, an ascetic in the forest. She wonders what he might have given to spend the last year like Uttara had, with no one but Brihannala by her side.  

**** 

“No,” she says back in the present, keeping her own smile coy as she was taught. Her left hand still grasps Gandiva. “Even your father’s skill as a teacher could only go so far. I believe he would have far more luck with you.” 

Arjuna snorts. “Krishna is a fine dancer himself, and a far better teacher. Uttara, bring your left hand up if you can.” 

Uttara’s fiance chokes, seemingly on his own spit. It is an unflattering expression, Uttara notes, but amusing. “He’s a _what_?”  

Horror paints itself onto Abhimanyu’s features, at what Uttara assumes to be his scandal at having allowed something so untutored slip past his lips. She does not think Arjuna the type to care, or even notice, but does her duty as a wife-to-be and attempts a distraction. Uttara tries to keep the effort off her face when she brings her left hand up, noticing the pride that quickly flashes across Arjuna’s face with not a little satisfaction.  

“A dancer,” Arjuna says, picking up an arrow and showing with his own hand how to grip and fit it against the bowstring. “Surely the stories haven’t changed that much over the years -- it was how he seduced all those girls when he lived in Braj.” 

At this, Abhimanyu falls silent, for long enough that both Uttara and her father-in-law look up. At Uttara’s raised eyebrow he bites his lip gently, brow furrowed, before speaking.

“They don’t speak of Before, in Dwaraka,” Abhimanyu says awkwardly, but with an undercurrent of curiosity. It is a phrase that must mean more to those of Yadava blood, because Arjuna hums as if it is explanation enough on its own. Before what, wonders Uttara -- before the dice game, before the Empire, before Dwaraka?

“Before Krishna was King,” Arjuna explains, smiling at the jolt the words send through his audience. “Even if they refuse to say it he was, by right of conquest, just as I was when I went on campaign. When Grandfather Ugrasena became King once more it was Krishna who placed the crown on his head, because it was his to give away.” He scoffs. “Those good-for-nothings can’t bear that they owe their power to a cowherd who decided he didn’t want what they so desperately craved.” 

Abhimanyu frowns for a moment, considering, but before Uttara can think of something to say he lightens, as if a weight has suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. He dares to roll his eyes. “It always ends up in a brawl somehow,” he says, as if this is a particularly good joke, “with Uncle Balarama threatening to bash open some clan head’s skull for insulting Uncle Krishna again.”

Arjuna laughs, and Abhimanyu glows as if he has been handed the moon. 

“It isn’t a Yadava festival if someone isn’t trying to frame your Uncle Krishna for petty theft,” Arjuna says, and incredibly Abhimanyu seems to agree. Yadavas, Uttara decides, are a strange sort.

“Don’t they have more respect for their General?” she asks. Her own uncle was not half the man her fiance’s is, and yet there was not a single word of dissent until his slaughter by Sarindhari’s yaksha husband. Or actually, she supposes, by the Pandavas who would have seen their wife molested before their eyes. Keechaka had won a few battles, and all of Matsya had feted him like a king in his own right, trembling in silence when his eyes lingered too long on their daughters. 

Krishna Vasudev has won wars. 

“He isn’t a brute,” Arjuna says with a knowing look, which changes quickly into one of disgust. “Though some of them might have preferred if he was.” He brings up his arms, mimicking how to notch an arrow before pulling back his wrist. 

“Can you pull back your arm?” 

She can, Uttara realizes, at least a little. She thrills at the idea that this might come naturally to her, in a way dancing had not. Uttara can feel the weight of Abhimanyu’s gaze along the frame of her body, now that he is no longer in a state of shock or recounting his own past, and that too is something she likes. He is a master bowman like his father, the reports said, and for a moment Uttara thinks that maybe they can be a match: she could be a proper warrior bride, for all that she has never expressed interest in the weapons of death.  

Uttara tries pulling back further, like she has seen people instruct her brother, and it seems like she will, she will, she will --

Her fingers slip, and the arrow falls dead to the ground.

“Again,” Arjuna says with a sigh, as if this is another failed attempt at wiggling her eyebrows one after the other. Uttara closes her eyes.  

The trouble with Brihannala had always been that she herself had been a natural talent, and so when faced with Uttara who was quite the opposite, she had nothing to offer but practice. It had taken months of failure before, in a stroke of frustration, Brihannala crouched to force Uttara’s fingers fingers and feet with her own hands, and for some reason, it had finally stuck. It was fortunate for them both that they had grown fond of one another’s presence, enough that extended amounts of time were not quite the burden they might have been otherwise. Uttara is fond of her father-to-be, but she is not such a glutton for punishment. She allows her dreams to die as suddenly as they were born. She was never one for blood anyway.  

“Oh no,” she says, laughing as she holds Gandiva out to its rightful owner. “I don’t think anyone expects me to be able to shoot any arrow, much less one from a bow like this. I am content to stand merely as your best dance pupil, rather than your worst archer.” If there is a slight twinge at her failure, especially in front of Abhimanyu, hopefully it is small enough not to show on her face. Abhimanyu is mercifully silent so she takes care to focus entirely on Arjuna in the hopes that she might not face her fiance’s scorn, or worse, his pity. 

“I have no other daughters either,” Arjuna says, reaching out for his bow with one hand and to ruffle her hair with another. Perhaps her disappointment showed after all. “So you will have to accept the title of favorite there as well.” 

Uttara hands him the bow, deciding that a hasty exit is the need of the hour. Perhaps she can say that her mother needs her, or simply imply that she has taken up enough of their time --

 

“Wait,” Uttara hears, said with such confidence that even Arjuna lets go of Gandiva. When she glances up she sees her fiance almost transformed, a strange weight to his gaze and a smile playing slightly at his lips as he strides forward. He takes one step, and then another until he is suddenly much closer to Uttara than she has ever been with a man not her brother or her father or Arjuna who was once Brihannala. Suddenly he is behind Uttara, his hands moving her body with a familiarity inappropriate for a fiance one has only met once or twice. Uttara had defied propriety, this is true, but it was only to come and meet Arjuna, who had spent a year as her teacher and said in public that he could not marry Uttara because he loved her like a daughter. 

She knows better, yet, when Abhimanyu speaks, she does not move away.  

“Here,” he says, “I always found it more helpful to be shown like this.” He brings his arms over her own, and Uttara gasps at the feeling of him shifting her until the back of her body touches his front. She almost glances to Arjuna, but a touch at her hand brings her back.  

Her fiance, she finds, is a far different presence than his father. Where she only ever felt safe with Brihannala, and even with Arjuna after, Abhimanyu exudes something a little more.... dangerous, Uttara thinks, but not in a bad way. Her stomach swoops, and she thinks she might have broken out in a slight sweat. Abhimanyu’s left hand grips Gandiva just above her own, his right hand covering hers as they both hold the arrow. When he guides her to take a deep breath, she feels the hairs on her forearm stand on end.

“What should be our target?” 

“Hmmm....” she mumbles, distracted by her attempts to catalog all the new sensations running through her body. She is startled back to reality when she hears what is unmistakably the laugh of her father to be. The pitch again is wrong, but the inflection is all Brihannala. 

“Go on,” Arjuna says, with a smile half indulgence, half glee. What does he know of proper conduct anyway, she thinks with a spark of bitterness, he who was much married during an exile of celibacy. 

“The pillar,” she says, trying fiercely to control the blush that threatens to break across her cheeks. 

“Breathe,” Abhimanyu says easily, though she can now hear something of embarrassment in his voice as well. She breathes. “It’s easy. Do you know how to release?” 

“I think so,” she says dutifully, trying not to focus on how, inexplicably, Abhimanyu still smells of the ocean, after all these weeks away from Dwaraka’s shores. He guides her arm back, gently adjusting her elbow. His fingers are calloused as Brihannala’s were, as Arjuna’s fingers are now. Her brother’s hands are soft, as are her father’s.  

“Inhale,” Abhimanyu says, and Uttara does. “When you exhale, release.” 

When Uttara exhales, she lets go. The arrow flies, and they all watch as, across the courtyard, it hits the pillar dead center. 

“I did it!” Uttara gasps, eyes wide. Arjuna’s voice carries some of the same surprise, but with some admiration too: “Yes,” he says, “you did.” 

“You’re a natural,” Abhimanyu says, still behind Uttara, his voice warm like sunshine. “Of course you did.” 

There is a moment of silence, then, all three of them still looking at the arrow. Uttara tries very hard not to move, thinks that if she focuses hard enough she can maybe live in this moment where Abhimanyu is still touching her and Arjuna, the most incredible warrior the Aryan kingdoms have ever known, is gazing at her accomplishment. 

Suddenly, someone laughs -- a fourth voice, a third man. They turn as one, only to find Krishna Vasudev with eyes triumphant, leaning against the entrance to the courtyard. 

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i hope you like this at least a little!!! (if not i promise i will write you another, better, one <3) 
> 
> everyone else please read and review in the comments!


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